(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photo-electric converting device having an excellent performance for converting an optical information into an electric signal by the working of solid state elements and to a solid state imaging apparatus employing it.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Various kinds of photo-electric converting devices have been used in various fields of technique, and those devices have various constructions and various performances according to the various purposes of usage respectively.
Particularly, for the purpose for converting an optical image into an electrical picture signal in a television camera, such a performance is required severely for those devices that a minute amount of incoming light can be converted into an electric signal with a high efficiency and a favourable signal to noise ratio and further output signals of conversion can be obtained uniformly in a wide range of wavelength of the incoming light with an excellent spectral performance. Moreover, those devices of solid state have been looked forward to because of the capability of miniaturization, the high stability and the high reliability thereof.
According to the above points of view, photo-diodes consisting of p-n junctions have been employed recently for the above mentioned purpose in place of phototubes and camera tubes which have been used for the above purpose for a long time, and the practised development of the solid state television camera has been tried, so as to promote the solidification of the photo-electric converting device positively.
However, the photo-electric converting device having a satisfactory performance cannot be realized at all for the present.